For the past two years, the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism has partnered with other media organizations on Precious Lives, a wide-ranging effort that examined the causes and consequences of gun violence on Milwaukee youth.

The final radio episode aired in December, but efforts to address this critical challenge facing our community will continue. The Journal Sentinel will continue to focus on youth violence and other critical problems facing Milwaukee, with in-depth reporting that highlights problems and potential solutions.

As part of Precious Lives, reporters from the Journal Sentinel and the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism asked more than a dozen community leaders a key question:

What is your pledge to do in the coming year and the future to help address the problem of gun violence in Milwaukee, especially as it pertains to young people?

Here are their responses:

State officials

Sen. Tim Carpenter, D-Milwaukee

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State Sen. Tim Carpenter, D-Milwaukee

In order to curb gun violence in Milwaukee, we need to focus on preventing criminal access to firearms. I will once again be introducing legislation that would make purchasing a gun (straw purchase) for someone who is not legally allowed to possess them a felony.

We also need to look at legislation to prevent habitual criminals from legally being able to possess firearms. Legislation is needed to stop human holsters, people who hold guns for felons to prevent the felon from being charged for possessing a firearm. State aid is needed to fund expanded ShotSpotter coverage in high crime-areas. Finally, we need an increase in the number of gun courts to handle crimes related to firearm violations.

Rep. Evan Goyke, D-Milwaukee

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State Rep. Evan Goyke, D-Milwaukee

After four years in the Legislature, I have grown cynical about the likelihood of passing meaningful legislation that will impact Wisconsin gun laws. … Regardless of majority party will on gun-related policies, I am dedicated to turning toward two important collateral policy areas: the juvenile justice system and economic development in Milwaukee’s central city.

First, the juvenile justice system, especially the Department of Corrections and Lincoln Hills School, need to be reformed. Evidence shows that a regional model for juvenile incarceration works far better than one large institution hours away from the state’s population centers. Reformed juvenile justice may reduce the recidivism rate of juveniles, which equals a reduction in crime. Improved fairness and restorative programming matters to how youth perceive the juvenile justice system, which can also result in a reduction of crime.

Second, creating the needed investment on a scale and duration that can truly transform the economy of our state’s largest city will bring added stability to families and added hope to young people that there is a reachable future.

Sen. Chris Larson, D-Milwaukee

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State Sen. Chris Larson, D-Milwaukee

As a neighbor, father and public servant, I understand that we have a moral obligation to do everything we can to prevent gun violence and make our communities safer.

Looking into 2017, I’ll continue to be an outspoken champion for public safety measures that would close the loophole so every gun sold is subject to a background check — this ensures guns don’t fall in the hands of people who shouldn’t have them. We’d reinstate the 48-hour cooling off period for buying handguns. We’d limit the size of ammo magazines for assault weapons. We’d limit firearm access of criminals and the dangerously mentally ill. We’d prohibit those on the FBI terrorist watchlist from buying guns. And we’d require a gun lock to be purchased with every gun so parents are more likely to lock their gun and keep their children from accidentally finding it and causing a tragedy. Safer community legislative proposals like these are vital for protecting lives. Introduction and debate of them will be critical components of an important, community-wide discussion of public safety.

Rep. LaTonya Johnson, D-Milwaukee

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State Rep. LaTonya Johnson, D-Milwaukee

In 2017, I pledge to be an agent for peace and safety in our community. Experiencing the unrest in Sherman Park firsthand this summer, it is clear that we are a community that is suffering — economically, environmentally, politically, and socially — and too often that suffering begins with senseless gun violence. I am committed to advancing policies at the state and local level that will restore safety to Milwaukee’s neighborhoods and offer support to traumatized children and their families so that ongoing cycles of violence and abuse can be disrupted.

We must enact common-sense safety requirements that keep guns out of the hands of criminals, allow local governments to determine their own gun safety needs, and devote more resources to treating the trauma and hopelessness that is the root cause of this public health crisis.

(Note: Johnson was elected to the state Senate in November and will be sworn in as a senator Tuesday.)

Sen. Lena Taylor, D-Milwaukee

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State Sen. Lena Taylor, D-Milwaukee

This session, I plan to reintroduce my gun violence prevention package, which includes mandatory insurance on firearms.

Especially as violence pertains to young people, we need to admit that a large-scale incarceration of youth at Lincoln Hills isn’t working and we must overhaul our state’s juvenile corrections entirely. That means it is time to end the Department of Corrections supervision of troubled youth and transfer all of juvenile corrections to the Department of Children and Families.

Furthermore, we need to get rid of institutions that don’t work, like Lincoln Hills, and double down on those that do work, like the Grow Academy and bring a Grow Academy to Milwaukee.

Finally, we must acknowledge the correlation between lead poisoning and violent crime and get to work immediately to get the lead out of our environment.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester

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Assembly Leader Robin Vos, R-Rochester

There is no simple solution to the Milwaukee crime problem. As outlined in the Assembly Republican agenda, we are looking to expand worker training, improve schools and address issues that may impede a person’s ability to work, like drug addiction.

However, we also must examine the judicial system to see why these dangerous criminals are not getting the tough sentences they deserve.

Rep. Josh Zepnick, D-Milwaukee

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Rep. Josh Zepnick, D-Milwaukee

It is important to think about the root causes of gun violence in the city when we seek solutions. Employment stability and strong family support are all intertwined. Addressing the critical need for better mental health services, especially AODA treatment, can lessen the incidences of gun violence. If we continue to build a more vibrant, economically and socially viable Milwaukee, we will begin to see the rates of gun violence decrease.

In certain cases, year-round public schooling and/or residential educational and treatment facilities that are 24/7 will be needed in acute cases of absentee or totally dysfunctional parenting. …Firearm safety training should also be expanded. Knowing how to properly use, care for, and store your firearm is essential in decreasing the level of gun violence in Wisconsin.

Milwaukee area leaders

Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele

Journal Sentinel files

Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele says his next budget will recommend investments in, among other things, workforce development, particularly for youth.

Too many young people in our community feel hopeless — they lack economic opportunity, they’re hungry, they’ve experienced trauma, and they’ve seen their neighborhoods neglected for years.

What we are focused on at the county is how to empower people so that they never feel like turning to a gun is their only way out. We continue to expand job training and placement opportunities and to transition services — like mental health care, alcohol and drug abuse treatment, and domestic violence prevention efforts — into the community, where they are more accessible. When we lift people up at an early age, it makes a big difference.

Health Commissioner Bevan Baker

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Commissioner of Health Bevan Baker (left) and Mayor Tom Barrett.

In public health, we know that the life circumstances and community conditions that make violence more likely also make good health less likely. That is why I pledge to advance our citywide Community Health Improvement Plan, called MKE Elevate, with a focus on creating shared priorities around the social and economic factors that drive healthier, safer neighborhoods.

MKE Elevate, being developed in tandem with our violence prevention plan, will call on every agency, business, nonprofit and individual to find where our work, passions and investments can align to support good health, safe neighborhoods, and healthy futures.

We cannot begin the marathon without a map of the course. These plans will be a guide. Finding our way will not be easy or fast, but we owe it to our city to try. I pledge to give it my all.

Devonte Hayes, 19-years-old, and Norman Howard, 18-years-old; two Milwaukee teenagers who used firearms while committing several carjackings and sentenced to prison. Two teens have been charged with the murder of Melanie Johnson.

Youthful, criminal offenders, falling through the juvenile justice system cracks. Some reoffend without fear of consequences.

The vast majority of our young people are on the right track. But we do have too many young Milwaukeeans who are crime victims and young Milwaukeeans who are perpetrators.

That’s why I have insisted on implementing new approaches including a comprehensive community centered plan to prevent violence.

Over the past year we reconfigured and empowered my Office of Violence Prevention so that we take a holistic approach to public safety. I pledge to continue that work and the work of placing Milwaukee teens into summer jobs.

Our Police Department now has a total budget greater than the entire city property tax levy, and that’s a reflection of our commitment to provide the resources and personnel to reduce crime.

Protecting our children, offering hope in their lives and ensuring that real consequences for criminal behavior are in place are key to the future of our community.

Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm

Rick Wood / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

District Attorney John Chisholm aims to promote neighborhood development and strong families.

The District Attorney’s Office will continue to support the strengthening of families through our collaboration with Sojourner Family Peace Center. The office will continue to support neighborhood development through our Community Prosecution Unit.

We will work with the Office of Violence Prevention to better coalesce the community efforts underway that intend to stabilize the lives of our youth, particularly those most at risk for engaging in criminal behavior.

And with the assistance of the MacArthur Foundation, we will better identify young people suffering from mental illness and trauma in order to steer them into the community resources that can most effectively treat their condition.

Terron Edwards serves as one of the Peace Project facilitators at Walnut Way.

Our Men’s Wellness Program here at Walnut Way will continue to specialize in building spaces where men can feel safe to grow and thrive. Our project will also continue to make visible community impact by creating opportunities for our men to take active leadership roles here in Lindsey Heights.

Through our Peace Project, which includes intergenerational programming and activities for neighborhood youth to gain a greater social circle and deal with trauma caused by violence; our ongoing neighborhood peace summits to facilitate resident involvement in solutions to violence; and our ongoing trainings to enrich and prepare our participants, we will continue to enrich our neighborhood through its greatest resource — its neighbors.

Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn

Rick Wood / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn reminds recruits of the high calling to be a police officer at a swearing-in ceremony for recruits in December.

Residents of Milwaukee and the Police Department need to continue to work collaboratively to change the culture surrounding violence in our city. We are not only combating violence but apathy as well. Young people need to realize there are other options besides violence to resolve disputes.

MPD will renew efforts to work with local clergy, community leaders, elected officials, and our officers who are striving every day, to be positive influences on Milwaukee’s youth.

Camille Mays, founder of Peace Garden Project MKE

Katie Klann / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Camille Mays, a community organizer, is the founder of Peace Garden Project MKE.

Peace Garden Project MKE is working on several city lot renovation projects that include creating community gardens and adding peace-inspired art. In addition to Peace Garden memorials, I have secured two lot projects for next year and anticipate a total of 25 lot projects by the end of 2017.

I will include youth in the projects to teach them skills and foster a sense of pride when they are involved in creating art and design for those spaces. I will discuss conflict resolution, and how they can make a positive impact against gun violence by promoting peace and unity in our community among their peers.

Reggie Moore, executive director of the Office of Violence Prevention

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Reggie Moore, director of Milwaukee’s Office of Violence Prevention.

The City of Milwaukee Office of Violence Prevention will continue to work alongside the community to identify the most effective strategies to prevent violence. The process has begun, with hundreds of residents, youth and stakeholders involved. By summer, this community-driven plan will launch.

We will expand our partner-driven trauma response work and launch our efforts to strengthen youth access to behavioral and mental health supports through youth development and employment.

None of this we can do alone. We commit to working with individuals, groups and agencies who share a vision of making Milwaukee a safe city for all.

Carmen Pitre, executive director of Sojourner Family Peace Center

Mike De Sisti / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Carmen Pitre, executive director of the Sojourner Family Peace Center.

Sojourner remains committed to transforming lives. The accessibility of firearms is a major public health concern, especially in domestic violence incidences as it can lead to intimate partner homicide. We are especially concerned about youth exposure to violence, which is why we work closely with others to address it. In addition, our partnership with Guns, Grief and Grace in America is a collective effort to create a readily available tool kit of resources to encourage dynamic and inclusive community conversation as it relates to gun violence.

If you or someone you know needs help, please call the Sojourner 24-Hour Domestic Violence Hotline: 414-933-2722. All calls are confidential.

Editor’s note: Some of the responses have been edited for length or clarity. Gov. Scott Walker did not respond to requests for comment. These comments were compiled by Ashley Luthern and Mary Spicuzza of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel staff, with contributions from the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism.

The federal Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, which took effect in 1994, required licensed dealers to subject buyers of handguns to a background check before a sale is made. The law was extended to shotguns and rifles in 1998.

Who is prohibited from purchasing a firearm?

Under state and federal law, people prohibited from buying guns include anyone who is:

Underage: Minimum age to purchase a firearm in Wisconsin is 18. To buy a handgun through a licensed dealer, the federal minimum age is 21.

Convicted or charged with a felony or another crime punishable by imprisonment for more than one year or found delinquent as a juvenile after April 21, 1994 for a comparable crime;

A fugitive from justice;

An unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance or ordered to alcoholism treatment;

Adjudicated as “a mental defective,” including anyone found to be insane, incompetent to stand trial, appointed a guardian or determined to be a danger to himself or others;

Committed to a mental institution;

An immigrant without legal status;

Dishonorably discharged from the military;

Has renounced his or her U.S. citizenship;

Is subject to a court order restraining him or her from harassing, stalking or physically threatening an intimate partner or family member;

Has been convicted of a misdemeanor for domestic violence.

What is the procedure for a background check?

For long gun purchases, buyers from a licensed dealer must fill out Form 4473, which asks about drug use, criminal history and mental health history. The dealer calls into the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, triggering an FBI search of several databases for potential prohibitions. The process happens within minutes.

Wisconsin is a point-of-contact state, meaning handgun dealers must contact the Wisconsin Department of Justice to conduct a background check to sell a handgun. Wisconsin’s DOJ is required to complete the check within five days.

Which sellers must be federally licensed?

Federal Firearm Licensees (FFLs) are individuals “engaged in the business” of selling guns. Applicants must go through a background check, safety training and testing to ensure they know how to handle weapons and are knowledgeable about firearms laws. Sellers who make “occasional sales, exchanges, or purchases of firearms for the enhancement of a personal collection or for a hobby” are not required to be licensed.

What is the private seller ‘loophole’?

There are no background check or record keeping requirements for private, unlicensed sellers. A private party may sell a firearm to a prohibited purchaser without committing a crime, unless the seller knows or has “reasonable cause to believe” the buyer is prohibited. It is still always illegal for a prohibited purchaser to buy a firearm.

DEERFIELD — Curt La Haise runs a shooting range 20 miles east of Madison where he teaches self defense and National Rifle Association-sponsored firearm courses. La Haise also teaches survival techniques and is a “prepper” who believes in being personally prepared for disasters.

Most of La Haise’s guns come from licensed dealers, which unlike private sellers are required to conduct background checks on buyers. He said he has no problem with the 18 states that have comprehensive background check laws that cover all buyers and sellers. But La Haise is skeptical such a requirement would reduce crime.

Alexandra Arriaga / Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

Curt La Haise is a shooting instructor, former police officer and a National Rifle Association member, seen here at his shooting range in Deerfield, Wis. La Haise is the owner of Guardian Safety & Security Solutions, which provides self-defense training. He holds a semi-automatic AR-15 rifle. Taken on July 30, 2016.

“Criminals will always get what they want to get,” he said. “Laws are for people that follow laws. Why should we make people who already follow laws follow more laws?”

His main concern is making sure that purchasers do not have to “jump through a bunch of hoops” or pay extra fees. He believes firearm sales should be “even” for all sellers.

“I don’t think criminals are buying their guns at gun shows, or through private sales legitimately,” La Haise said. “They’re buying them from another gang member.”

Allison Anderman, staff attorney at the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence in San Francisco, which tracks and analyzes firearm legislation, said because of the private sale loophole, prohibited purchasers can get weapons through legal means.

Anderman acknowledged that gang members and criminals still may be able to purchase firearms, even with universal background checks.

“But,” asked Anderman, “why should we be allowing people to easily and otherwise lawfully acquire firearms if they are prohibited from having them?”

On a Sunday afternoon nearly four years ago, Elvin Daniel was in his garden when he got a call from police: His sister, Zina Haughton, had been shot at work.

Zina’s abusive husband, Radcliffe Haughton, used a semiautomatic handgun that he bought from a man in the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant in Germantown the day before the shooting. He killed Zina Haughton, Maelyn Lind and Cary Robuck and wounded four others at the Azana Salon & Spa in the Milwaukee suburb of Brookfield. He then used the weapon to kill himself.

Zina Daniel Haughton, 42, left behind two daughters, ages 20 and 13.

Daniel, who owns a gun, said he was shocked that his late brother-in-law was able to buy a firearm despite a judge’s order prohibiting Radcliffe Haughton from possessing a gun.

“We started to find out that people actually can get guns without a background check,” said Daniel, who lives in Illinois, where all gun purchasers must pass a background check. “As naive as I was back then, I thought because I go through a background check, everybody did. So we start to find out about all these loopholes that we have in our laws.”

Since his sister’s death, Daniel has pushed lawmakers to expand criminal background checks beyond licensed dealers to private sellers, such as those who advertise on Armslist. That is where Haughton found the seller of the gun he used in the mass shooting.

“I mean, the day before that (shooting), I was one of those that says, ‘You know what, leave me and my guns alone,’ ” Daniel said. “I still feel that, but I believe that everybody should go through a background check when they buy a gun to keep guns out of (the hands of) people that shouldn’t have them.”

Coburn Dukehart / Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

Zina Haughton was murdered by her estranged husband in 2012 with a gun he purchased illegally from a private seller who advertised on Armslist.com. At the time, Radcliffe Haughton was legally prohibited from purchasing a gun because of a domestic-violence restraining order.

Zina Haughton’s daughter, Yasmeen Daniel, was at the salon and saw her mother shot to death. Her stepfather also tried to shoot at her, but Daniel was saved when Lind stepped in front of her.

She is now suing Armslist, charging the website facilitated the illegal gun purchase that led to her mother’s death. Armslist has asked a Milwaukee County Circuit judge to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that under Wisconsin law, the company cannot be held liable for the actions of people who advertise on its site.

Eighteen states plus the District of Columbia have expanded background checks beyond federal law to include at least some private sales. Two more states — Nevada and Maine — have expanded background checks on the ballot this fall.

Officials in Milwaukee are working with community leaders and nonprofit groups on a plan to reduce gun violence. A top recommendation: Expand criminal background checks to private gun sales. (That initiative is partially funded by The Joyce Foundation, which also provides funding for the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism’s coverage of gun violence prevention issues.)

Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn said expanding background checks to private sellers would not cure all of Milwaukee’s violence, but it would be a step.

“Background checks for private party gun sales would add another layer of oversight that may help keep guns out of the hands of those prohibited from possessing guns,” Flynn said in an email.

But Republicans who run Wisconsin state government have blocked attempts to require background checks on purchases from private sellers. That position is shared by the National Rifle Association, the nation’s most powerful gun lobby, which spent $3.6 million to support Republicans and conservative candidates in Wisconsin between 2008 and 2014, according to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.

A 1997 study estimated that 40 percent of U.S. guns are obtained outside of federally licensed gun stores. Updated research from Harvard University and Northeastern University includes soon-to-be published findings that roughly one-third of gun acquisitions today occur outside of such licensed dealers.

Everytown for Gun Safety

Ted Alcorn, research director, Everytown for Gun Safety.

Expanding background checks to private sales is the “most promising” strategy to prevent gun violence, said Ted Alcorn, research director for Everytown for Gun Safety, the nation’s largest gun violence prevention advocacy organization. The group, which began as Mayors Against Illegal Guns, is bankrolled by Michael Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor and gun-control advocate. Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett helped co-found the organization.

Firearm violence includes two elements, Alcorn said: a gun and a person who poses a high risk of causing harm with it. Background checks act as a gatekeeper, he said, preventing individuals at risk of harming others from accessing guns.

University of California Regents

Dr. Garen Wintemute, director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California-Davis, says requiring universal background checks is among the most effective strategies to reduce gun violence.

“Criminologists and law enforcement officers say this is … the biggest weakness with the gun laws that we currently have in place because it leaves an open door for prohibited people like convicted felons and domestic abusers to buy firearms without a background check, no questions asked,” Alcorn said.

Dr. Garen Wintemute, director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California-Davis, has studied various policies for more than 30 years and agrees universal background checks are among the most effective at preventing gun violence.

Daniel Webster, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, also has studied background checks. Webster and his fellow researchers found that Connecticut saw a 40 percent drop in the firearm homicide rate over a decade after universal background checks were enacted. In contrast, when Missouri repealed such a law in 2007, firearm homicide rates rose 23 percent, Webster has found.

Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research

Daniel Webster, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, has studied the effects of state universal background check laws and found they are associated with lower firearm homicide rates.

The permit-to-purchase laws implemented in Connecticut and repealed in Missouri require buyers to pass background checks and get a license from a state or local police agency to buy a firearm. Some states require a permit for all firearms and some only for handguns. In some states, permit holders must first go through safety training or an exam.

But a University of Pittsburgh study this year discovered that most criminals found ways around laws aimed at keeping guns out of their hands. Researchers traced the origins of 893 firearms recovered by Pittsburgh police in 2008. The study found 79 percent of perpetrators were not the legal owner of the firearm used in the crime — bolstering the gun-rights argument that laws do not stop criminals who want guns. Pennsylvania requires background checks for all handgun purchases.

NRA spokeswoman Catherine Mortensen said these types of laws are tantamount to “criminalization of the private transfer of firearms.”

“These gun control laws criminalize the commonplace practices of law-abiding gun owners,” Mortensen said in a written statement. “By imposing government mandates and fees they cost law-abiding gun owners time, money and freedom.”

Mortensen cited work by economist John Lott, Jr. In his 2016 book, “The War on Guns, Arming Yourself Against Gun Control Lies,” Lott writes that data from all 50 states from 1977 to 2005 shows murders were 49 percent higher and robberies were 75 percent higher in states with expanded background checks.

Lott is founder and president of Crime Prevention Research Center, a Colorado nonprofit that studies the relationship between gun policy and public safety. The center says it receives no funding from the NRA.

Republicans mum on checks

In emotional testimony before a U.S. Senate committee in 2014, Elvin Daniel described himself as “a Republican, an avid hunter (and) a gun owner” who is “a strong supporter of the Second Amendment, and an NRA member.” Nevertheless, he urged the senators to pass universal background checks and make some “good come out of (Zina’s) death.”

“It is heartbreaking to know that our weak gun laws continue to allow dangerous abusers to buy guns without a background check,” he said.

On June 23, House Democrats staged a sit-in to try to force a vote on a measure to expand background checks and another that would have prohibited people on no-fly lists, including the Orlando shooter, from buying guns. Republican Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin blocked that effort, calling it a “publicity stunt.”

In Wisconsin — where an epidemic of gun violence fueled by illegally obtained firearms is raging in Milwaukee — lawmakers have avoided voting on background checks. Bills introduced by Democrats to expand background checks in recent sessions have died without a hearing.

Republican Gov. Scott Walker has said he opposes expanding background checks. In a written response to questions from the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, Walker spokesman Tom Evenson said Wisconsin already requires background checks; he did not address the issue of private sales, which require no such scrutiny.

Other top Republicans are mum on why the Legislature has declined to consider expanding background checks.

Email and phone messages sent to Rep. Joel Kleefisch, R-Oconomowoc, chairman of the Assembly Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety, also were not returned. He told Wisconsin Public Radio in 2015 that he opposed the Democrats’ bill but gave no explanation.

‘Don’t ask, don’t, tell’ for guns

Wintemute said there are “two systems of gun commerce in the United States”: Sales by licensed retailers that require background checks, paperwork and a permanent record; and transactions between two private individuals requiring no screening or record keeping.

Wintemute has seen the systems in action during his visits to gun shows in Wisconsin and elsewhere. He calls it “Don’t ask, don’t tell” for guns.

“I’ve watched people go up and negotiate the purchase of the gun from a vendor at a gun show, not realizing that they’re talking to a licensed dealer,” Wintemute said. “And just as the negotiation is concluding, out comes the paperwork. And the buyer says, ‘Wait, you’re a dealer?’ And the seller says ‘Yes,’ and the buyer just laughs and walks away and goes and finds a private party to buy from.”

Coburn Dukehart / Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

A tag at Ron Martin's booth at the Badger Military Collectible Show in Waukesha on Aug. 5, clearly identifies him as a licensed gun dealer. Martin, who has been a licensed dealer for 33 years, runs background checks on any potential purchaser of his guns.

At the Badger Military Collectible Show at the Waukesha Expo Center Aug. 5, some licensed dealers told a reporter that they have witnessed the same thing. At this show, old military uniforms, medals and vintage firearms were sold next to tables with newer handguns and rifles. Licensed dealers were vocal in their thoughts on expanding background checks to private sales, but several unlicensed sellers declined interview requests.

Marty Brunner, who goes by the nickname “Machine Gun” Marty, is a licensed gun manufacturer and dealer. “NRA4 EVER” is tattooed across the knuckles of both his hands. Brunner believes purchasers go to private dealers because “they have something to hide.” He also believes private vendors are more likely to sell “hot guns” previously used in crimes.

Coburn Dukehart / Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

Marty Brunner, who goes by the nickname "Machine Gun" Marty, shows off his "NRA4 EVER" tattoos at his booth at the Badger Military Collectible Show in Waukesha on Aug. 5. When gun purchasers approach him and ask whether he is a private seller, he points to bright signs that label him as a licensed dealer and asks, "Are you colorblind, or just illiterate?"

Tom Hardell, owner of Tom’s Military Arms & Guns, said he “definitely” supports universal background checks. Hardell, who mostly sells handguns, said he has turned down a lot of buyers after running a background check. Many of them, he said, are “gang bangers.”

“It hurts me as a business, and it hurts Milwaukee because that’s where the guns are coming (from),” Hardell said.

Ron Martin, a licensed dealer who travels across Wisconsin selling hunting rifles, said implementing background checks for everyone could “level the playing field” between licensed and unlicensed firearm sellers.

Coburn Dukehart / Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

Rifles are seen on display at Ron Martin's booth at the Badger Military Collectible Show in Waukesha, on Aug. 5. Martin has been a licensed gun dealer for 33 years.

Martin is not sure expanding background checks would help to reduce firearm violence, however.

“You could put all the laws you want, but the last I checked criminals don’t abide by laws,” Martin said. “They don’t buy guns — they steal them.”

Former gang member: Guns easy to get

But Rico, a former gang member and admitted criminal from Madison, told a reporter that he bought his guns, finding it easy to amass numerous high-powered weapons after he failed a background check by a licensed dealer. While Rico has bought some of his guns “on the street,” he also purchased weapons at gun shows. He asked that his full formal name not to be used because he described committing crimes that could subject him to prosecution.

The 27-year-old estimated that he owns more than 20 guns — all of them bought without passing a background check.

“To be honest, I lost count. I got many. I got assault rifles, I mean, just regular hand pistols, they could be 9-millimeter Berettas, mini-AKs, ARs,” Rico said, listing a variety of semi-automatic weapons. He photographed many of them at the request of a reporter.

Guns in the collection of former gang member Rico include (clockwise from top left): Mini-AK semi-automatic pistols which he bought privately without a background check. Red background: A 9-millimeter Beretta, left, a .22-caliber Long Rifle pistol, top, and .44-caliber Magnum were all obtained from private sellers at gun shows with no background check. Bottom right: He bought an M24 sniper rifle privately without a background check. Bottom left: He bought the 9-millimeter Beretta handgun and the pump-action rifles at a gun show in Black River Falls through private vendors, also without a background check.

He bought several firearms without a background check at a Black River Falls gun show. He used the same terminology as Wintemute to describe private transactions: “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”

It is possible that Rico could qualify to buy a gun after undergoing a background check. He was charged with a felony in 2009 — possession with intent to deliver marijuana — but the case was dropped for lack of evidence. Rico believes he could have fought the background check denial. He chose not to.

“I might as well buy it from a third party where they don’t do background checks, like gun shows, private sales,” Rico said, saying such transactions are similar to “people who’re just selling them … on the street.”

He said universal background checks would not keep criminals from getting guns.

During his years in the gang, Rico said he used guns for intimidation and robbery — even a shootout. Rico acknowledged using firearms to rob people at ATM machines.

“I mean, the more crime you did … the more elite, the more alpha you were,” he explained.

He described one incident in Milwaukee about 10 years ago in which two cars approached his group on the street. Somebody said something in Spanish that provoked his group. At least 15 shots were traded in a matter of moments, he said.

Rico said he has quit the gang life. He went back to school, and now works in an office as a tech specialist. He has turned in his gangster attire for gym gear; he hopes to become a certified trainer.

One remnant of his old lifestyle stayed.

“I kept the firearms,” Rico said.

Lawsuit targets Armslist

For several years before her death, Zina Haughton had been physically abused by her husband. When the violence escalated in October 2012, she got a restraining order and moved out of the couple’s Brown Deer home, testifying that his threats “terrorize my every waking moment.”

Radcliffe Haughton killed three people, including his estranged wife, and wounded four others at the Azana Salon & Spa in Brookfield, Wis., in 2012.

The court granted her protection, prohibiting him from approaching Zina Haughton for four years and from possessing firearms, a ban that would have lasted until October 2016.

If Radcliffe Haughton had attempted to buy from a licensed dealer, he would have been blocked by a background check, and police would have been alerted to his attempt to illegally acquire a gun, according to the lawsuit filed by Yasmeen Daniel with help from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

Instead, he visited Armslist.com.

The lawsuit argued that Haughton’s “extreme urgency, lack of discernment, and preference for a high-capacity magazine” should have alerted Armslist proprietors.

Without any screening or background check, Radcliffe Haughton purchased a FNP-40 semi-automatic handgun for $500 from a private seller in a McDonald’s parking lot.

The complaint argues Armslist proprietors designed the site to exploit the loophole to allow private sellers to cater to prohibited purchasers. It notes that the website has been traced to several incidents in which prohibited purchasers used firearms in Wisconsin and elsewhere.

Websites including eBay, Amazon and Craigslist have banned private gun sales. The complaint argues that Armslist strategically fills the online void left for private gun sales “to enable the sale of firearms to prohibited and otherwise dangerous people.”

The lawsuit also alleges such transactions circumvent other safeguards, including federal restrictions on interstate transfers of guns, state waiting periods and state-specific assault weapon bans.

Armslist attorney Eric Van Schyndle did not respond to several messages seeking comment. Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Glenn Yamahiro has scheduled a Nov. 1 hearing to decide whether to dismiss the case. In 2014, Armslist defeated a similar lawsuit in Illinois.

Background checks stall in Wisconsin

State Sen. Nikiya Harris Dodd, D-Milwaukee, and state Rep. Terese Berceau, D-Madison, co-sponsored a bill again in the most recent legislative session to implement universal background checks. Berceau called it a “common sense” step to reduce gun violence.

Alexandra Arriaga / Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

State Rep. Terese Berceau, D-Madison, speaks at the National Day of Action on Gun Violence Prevention rally in Madison on June 29.

“It seems really obvious to me that if you are a person who knows that you can’t pass a background check, you’re going to buy from one of these private sellers, and that is indeed what’s going on,” Berceau said.

Under the bill, all firearm transactions would have to go through a licensed dealer, and buyers would have to pass a background check, with certain exceptions. Gifts between family members, for example, would be exempt.

As a representative from Milwaukee, where gun violence spiked in 2015, Harris Dodd called the legislation a “no-brainer.” Milwaukee had 119 gun-related homicides and 633 nonfatal shootings in 2015, according to the Milwaukee Homicide Review Commission — the highest in at least 10 years. The Center has reported that such crimes cost individuals and the state of Wisconsin billions a year in medical bills, police and prosecutorial costs, lost lives and stunted futures.

Of the known suspects in the 2015 gun homicides in Milwaukee, 69 percent — or 66 suspects — were legally prohibited from possessing a firearm at the time of the crime, according to the commission.

Milwaukee’s lobbyist, Jennifer Gonda, said universal background checks are a key part of the city’s legislative agenda. But she is not optimistic any of the city’s priorities to reduce gun violence will pass the current Legislature.

“We didn’t make much headway with the Democrats and … we’re making less with the Republicans,” Gonda said. “In some ways, it feels like we’re spinning our wheels a little bit.”

Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, a member of the NRA, has opposed universal background checks and other gun regulations. Clarke, a Democrat who spoke at the Republican National Convention, has advised residents to arm themselves to stay safe.

“Universal background checks and limiting magazine capacity are offered as reasonable approaches to reducing violence” but are “technical fixes” that mostly “frustrate the overwhelming number of law-abiding American gun owners,” Clarke wrote in an opinion piece for CNN in 2014.

Elvin Daniel said some steps toward reducing gun violence in Wisconsin have been taken. He appeared with Walker in 2014 when the governor signed a law requiring people served with restraining orders to surrender their firearms.

Coburn Dukehart / Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

Elvin and Cheryl Daniel keep a bowl on their coffee table with a cross, a "Z," and a basket of ribbons and bracelets in Zina Haughton's favorite color, purple, to remember Elvin's slain sister. Haughton was murdered by her estranged husband with a gun he purchased via Armslist.com, despite having a restraining order against him.

But for now, universal background checks — which Daniel believes would have prevented the Azana Spa mass shooting that claimed three lives including his sister’s — remain out of reach. He is reminded of that every day by the purple bracelet that reads “For the love of Zina” on his wrist.

“Had he gone through a background check, he wouldn’t have been able to buy a gun,” Daniel said. “Chances are, Zina would still be with us right now.”

The daughter of an alcoholic, abusive father, Tamra Oman remembers trying to protect her mother from his violent outbursts, even though she was not yet in kindergarten.

“I remember him choking her over the sink. Spitting out blood. Blooding coming out all over the place and landing on me,” Oman said, recounting one incident in her early childhood in Crown Point, Indiana. “I remember going into this situation trying to save her. Trying to jump on top of him and save her.

“I can remember what I was wearing,” she continued. “That’s what trauma does. It also gets you stuck in those places.”

It was one painful episode in a childhood punctuated by sexual and physical assaults and teenage years tinged with cocaine use. Oman, now 45 and living in Fond du Lac, said she went to drug treatment more than a dozen times.

Wisconsin is part of a growing nationwide movement to adopt trauma-informed care, or using information about children’s troubled pasts to improve mental health, provide social services and address a wide range of criminal justice problems. Research has shown that adverse childhood experiences can lead to a lifetime of problems.

For her part, Oman said the trauma she suffered as a young child set her on a path of self destruction. She sabotaged success by dropping out of a series of colleges. She committed crimes. Oman finally ended up in prison, including two and a half years at Taycheedah and Burke women’s prisons for forgery and writing bad checks.

“If you would’ve addressed my victimization as a child, I probably never would have ended up in prison,” Oman said. “I became a perpetrator — not intentionally, but because that (trauma) never healed.”

Dan Young / USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Students change classes in a hallway at Lincoln Hills School for Boys in 2013. Beginning in 2012, staff at Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake School for girls were trained in and began using trauma-informed care principles.

In Wisconsin, trauma-informed care burst into the news in recent months with investigations into allegations of abuse at the state’s juvenile prisons in northern Wisconsin.

Some staff there have blamed the more empathetic trauma-informed approach for breakdowns in security and discipline that they said led to assaults on workers and offenders. Those involved in the training counter that the technique was not properly implemented at Lincoln Hills School for Boys and Copper Lake School for girls.

For Oman, facing the trauma of her childhood helped her to heal. Her brother Brian, four years older, never “connected with his own pain.” Although he appeared successful on the outside, in 2000, Brian used a gun to take his own life.

Oman now works at the Wisconsin Resource Center for mentally ill offenders in Winnebago. She advocates and uses trauma-informed care to help people like herself move forward from terrible childhood experiences.

State pushes trauma-informed care

“Really, what we’re trying to do, essentially, with trauma-informed care is to bring humanity back into human services, slow down and treat people with care, compassion and respect,” said Scott Webb, who has been leading Wisconsin’s efforts to spread use of trauma-informed care across the state since 2014.

Coburn Dukehart / Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

Scott Webb is trauma-informed care coordinator for the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. DHS is one of several state agencies advocating for the use of the more ‘humanistic’ approach in providing social services, working with juvenile inmates and dealing with traumatized children in school settings.

The state Department of Health Services spends about $112,000 a year, primarily on a contract that includes Webb’s salary from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and related expenses, to encourage and train agencies to use trauma-informed principles.

The Department of Children and Families, through its Wisconsin Trauma Project, also is rolling out trauma-informed care. In 2015, the initiative provided training to 77 clinicians and 123 child welfare workers and caregiver parents in trauma-informed principles in Jefferson, Rock and Walworth counties.

The state Department of Public Instruction this year is training staff at 30 schools in how to use trauma-informed care to help children learn and heal as part of the School Mental Health Initiative, and another 30 will join the program in 2017, according to Nic Dibble, a consultant with DPI’s school social work section. The effort is being financed with discretionary federal funds, he said.

The office is taking advice from “parent partners” such as foster mother Tina Buhrow of Chippewa Falls. Buhrow said one teenager who had experienced a lot of trauma recently summed up the approach well: “Stop labeling the child. Instead, understand their story.”

Trauma common, crucial

Trauma is common. Between 25 and 61 percent of all children and adolescents in the United States have experienced trauma, a percentage that increases with age, said Ernestine Briggs-King, research director for the National Center for Child Traumatic Stress at Duke University.

Speaking to a group of journalists in New York City last fall, Briggs-King defined trauma as a physical or emotional experience threatening the life or integrity of a child or someone she or he loves. Such events can evoke feelings including terror, powerlessness and being out of control.

Trauma-informed care “acknowledges and responds to the role of trauma in the development of emotional, behavioral, educational and physical difficulties,” she said.

Related Story

Exposure to trauma is often measured in 10 adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs. They cover a range of bad circumstances children can experience: an incarcerated parent, hunger, divorce, domestic violence, parental substance abuse, and physical and sexual abuse. Some practitioners have added more ACEs to the deck, such as witnessing a shooting or other violence in their community.

The complex including Lincoln Hills School for Boys and Copper Lake School is seen in this 2015 file photo. Critics charge that a trauma-informed care approach led to security breakdowns there, but advocates say Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake failed to fully implement the program.

In Wisconsin, data from 2011-13 show 58 percent of adults reported at least one adverse childhood experience. But the results vary by race: Among respondents, 79 percent of blacks reported having one or more ACEs, compared to 56 percent of whites.

Studies have shown that adults with high ACE scores are more likely to suffer from poor health, be arrested, unemployed or have substance abuse problems. Trauma-informed care is seen as a way to halt the cycle of violence and dysfunction and improve quality of life for people who have experienced trauma.

“There’s good stuff going on around the country … which, if adopted on a larger scale, we could chip away at this problem of violence,” Briggs-King said.

A recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study found many of the 569 perpetrators in gun crimes between 2009 and 2014 in Wilmington, Delaware, had significant trauma histories themselves, including child abuse or neglect; emergency room visits for intentionally inflicted injuries; and involvement with the social welfare system. The study suggests finding and helping such potential perpetrators before they commit crimes.

SaintA, a private nonprofit social service agency based in Milwaukee, is a national leader in the use of trauma-informed principles. Tim Grove, chief clinical officer for SaintA, told a group of Wisconsin juvenile justice and child welfare officials last fall that the relationship between high ACE scores and certain bad outcomes is “staggering.”

Grove said a person with an ACE score of 8 or above is 4,200 times more likely to use drugs than someone with a score of 0. An ACE score of 6 or higher is associated with a 20-year decrease in life expectancy compared to having no ACEs.

“These are powerful scientific findings — not theory, not hypothesis,” he said.

Stress, violence and one caring adult

David Murphey, senior research scientist for Child Trends, an organization that collects data and studies aimed at improving the wellbeing of children, told journalists gathered last fall that about 40 percent of U.S. children have multiple exposures to violence, either as a victim or witness.

If such experiences are frequent or severe, they can generate “toxic stress,” which causes learning difficulties, emotional problems, antisocial behaviors, poor health and even early death.

Courtesy Turnaround for Children

Michael Lamb, executive director of the Washington, D.C. branch of Turnaround for Children, says students who have been traumatized sometimes get stuck in a ‘fight, flight or freeze’ mode because of previous negative experiences, making it difficult for them to learn.

But a single supportive adult “can buffer the effects of toxic stress,” Murphey said.

Michael Lamb, executive director of Turnaround for Children, said when he was a young teacher at a school on Chicago’s South Side, many of his students were locked in a “fight, flight or freeze” mode from exposure to trauma.

Because of his own inexperience dealing with traumatized children, Lamb said a mock trial exercise went badly awry, triggering a strong response in students not accustomed to “healthy debate that doesn’t escalate.”

“Upon the first point of disagreement, all of the students started throwing books at each other. It was chaos,” recalled Lamb, who runs the program’s Washington, D.C. effort to help struggling schools serve traumatized students.

“Students who’ve been through a lot of trauma … their bodies are flooded with cortisol, and the impact is both on the learning part of their brain as well as the immune system,” Lamb explained, referring to the hormone released in response to stress. “So every day it feels like the bear … is right in front of them because of what’s in their brains.”

Lamb brought his mother into the classroom to calm his students and to humanize him as a teacher. He discovered one antidote to his students’ violent reactions: Adults they could trust.

Trauma-informed Waupaca County

Chuck Price remembers hearing Wisconsin’s first lady Tonette Walker speak about trauma-informed care about four years ago. Walker began the Fostering Futures collaboration of state agencies and private service providers in 2011 to raise awareness about the effect of childhood trauma on people’s lives.

Dee J. Hall / Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

Chuck Price, director of the Waupaca County Department of Health and Human Services, says his agency uses a trauma-informed approach in all of its services. Here, Price is seen in the agency’s brightly painted hallway, which is designed to minimize trauma to children who have been maltreated.

As the new director of the Waupaca County Department of Health and Human Services, Price believed the approach endorsed by Walker could become a “cornerstone” for the agency. His department manages mental health care, Medicaid, food assistance, child welfare, juvenile justice and other services for some of the county’s 53,000 residents in this central Wisconsin county.

Now, trauma-informed care is infused in everything his department does.

Trauma-informed care is the reason for the brightly painted murals on the second floor of the Waupaca County complex leading to rooms where child victims of abuse or neglect are interviewed. Price points to a nature scene with 17 ladybugs hidden in it. He called it a “distraction element” designed to “make that a little less of a traumatizing walk.”

The approach also is reflected in the patience that operators at the regional call center are counseled to use as they help frustrated recipients access public benefits.

And it is in the partnership that the agency develops with parents facing loss of custody of their children after allegations of child abuse or neglect.

Courtesy of Lisa Grasshoff / Waupaca County Industries

A hanging chair is seen in the sensory room at Waupaca County Industries, a vocational rehabilitation facility for adults with disabilities in Manawa run by the Waupaca County Department of Health and Human Services. The space helps members calm down if they become over-stimulated or emotionally triggered while at work — providing them with a safe place to calm themselves so they can return to the job.

Season Westphal, who manages the foster care program, said Waupaca County uses the principles of trauma-informed care by taking a “much more humanistic approach” to allegations of child maltreatment.

“That means calling somebody over the phone to schedule an appointment, asking permission to talk to them and their child, as opposed to just doing it without permission or going to the school and interviewing children without parental consent,” Westphal said. “We’ve found that that isn’t the best way to develop a good working relationship with the family and to earn trust with people.”

At the call center, operators are instructed to help resolve as many problems as they can themselves rather than pass a client off to another person or department, said Chris Machamer, the county’s economic support coordinator.

“Many times, they (clients) are angry because they think their benefits are messed up or because they themselves maybe didn’t follow through,” Machamer said. “And so, using a trauma-informed approach, rather than putting the blame back on them … we take the approach of, ‘How can we help you now?’ ”

This more cooperative stance has resulted in a sharp reduction in formal complaints lodged against the agency, Deputy Director Shannon Kelly said. The department had an average of 10 to 12 per year in the past. There has been just one complaint in the past two years, she said.

“We’re being upfront. We’re not a ‘gotcha’ kind of agency — no surprises back to the folks we’re serving,” Price said.

Other metrics also are positive. Before taking a trauma-informed approach, just 21 percent of children in out-of-home placements were returned to their family home within 12 months. Now 73 percent are reunited within a year, said Alisha Haase, who manages ongoing child protection for the county.

Staff turnover also is down, Kelly added, while measurements of job satisfaction and well-being are up.

Price said the agency’s goal is “making sure that we’re leaving individuals and families better off having received services or having interaction with our agency than when they found us.”

Homeless, addicted — then hope

After 83 arrests, a stubborn crack addiction and 19 years living on the street, someone finally asked Tonier Cain, “What happened to you?”

The question, posed just over a decade ago, probably saved her life.

Since then, the deeply religious Cain has become an evangelist for trauma-informed care. She has spoken at conferences across the country and around the world. Her life has been featured in movies and an autobiography, “Healing Neen.”

Dee J. Hall / Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

Tonier Cain signs copies of her autobiography, ‘Healing Neen,’ during a statewide conference in the Wisconsin Dells on using trauma-informed care to help children overcome adverse childhood experiences. A former homeless crack addict, Cain travels the world advocating the use of trauma-informed care to help children and adults heal from negative experiences.

Cain told her story to hundreds of juvenile court and child welfare officials in late September during a conference on trauma-informed care in the Wisconsin Dells.

She was the oldest of eight children of a single, alcoholic mother who sometimes left them alone and hungry for days in their apartment in Annapolis, Maryland. Her mother’s boyfriends sexually assaulted her in the bedroom she shared with her younger siblings.

Although she was often unwashed — earning the nickname “Pissy Neen” at school — Cain developed an obsession with tooth brushing “to get rid of the smell of the men that forced themselves around my face, in my mouth.”

At age 9, she began drinking. At 16, she married a man eight years older. Cain thought he would save her. Instead, her husband “beat me down until he saw blood” during fits of jealous rage. At age 19, desperate for an escape, Cain discovered crack cocaine.

Her life spiraled even further out of control.

Courtesy of Healing Neen Inc.

A mugshot from the Annapolis Police Department in Maryland shows Tonier Cain on Nov. 15, 1994. Cain blames childhood victimization for her crack addiction, 19 years living on the streets and 83 arrests. Her life was transformed after she was treated for her childhood trauma, Cain says.

She traded sex for drugs, beer and cigarettes. Four times Cain gave birth; each time, she was forced to give up her baby. Another baby died in childbirth while Cain was strapped to a gurney during a jail stint.

Cain estimated she went to drug treatment 30 times. One of her counselors raped her. He was sent to prison. When not locked up herself, Cain lived on the streets and ate chicken scraps from the garbage “like a rat.”

Eleven years ago, while incarcerated and expecting another child, a therapist finally asked Cain about her past. Telling her story was cathartic. The two worked through the pain — the physical and sexual abuse, her mother’s abandonment, the lost babies.

“I have four kids walking this earth. If I pass them in the streets, I wouldn’t even know it. How do you heal from that?” Cain asked.

But she did.

“I was believed,” Cain said, “so I was able to begin healing that hurt.”

Today, Cain has multiple homes and a “really smart” fifth-grade daughter — the baby she was expecting when she halted the multi-generational cycle of trauma in her family. Cain’s life now revolves around her child and telling her story — and getting people in charge to listen.

She showed one of her police mugshots on the screen of the conference room in the Dells.

“If this woman was yet again in your system … 83 times you’ve seen her show up. … My question to you this morning is simply this: ‘Would you be able to look at her and see me today?’ ”

She ended the talk with this:

“Where there’s breath, there’s hope. Treat the trauma. You will get results.”

]]>https://www.wisconsinwatch.org/2016/05/focus-on-traumatic-childhood-helps-victims-heal-and-succeed/feed/0164889A day in trauma-informed court: Parents work to regain custody of their kidshttps://www.wisconsinwatch.org/2016/05/a-day-in-trauma-informed-court-parents-work-to-regain-custody-of-their-kids/
https://www.wisconsinwatch.org/2016/05/a-day-in-trauma-informed-court-parents-work-to-regain-custody-of-their-kids/#respondSun, 22 May 2016 05:01:35 +0000http://www.wisconsinwatch.org/?p=164893

In most courtrooms, the story of a defendant’s terrible childhood — what types of abuse or neglect may have prompted him or her to commit crimes — is often told at the very end of the court process when a judge decides which sentence to impose.

Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Mary Triggiano, a leader in Wisconsin’s trauma-informed care movement, wants to know that story at the start. Deciding the disposition of a case “takes a lot more courage,” she said, “once you understand a person’s story and history.”

“Trauma-informed care is not a program. It’s not a project. It is a philosophy and a way of being,” Triggiano said during a recent interview. “It’s not just about pretty walls or different colors. … It’s how you interact with somebody.”

This approach, which is being promoted by the state of Wisconsin across multiple systems, was on display during a Family Drug Treatment Court session in Triggiano’s courtroom in March.

On this day, two dozen people, including case managers, other social service providers, advocates and attorneys, gather to discuss each defendant. Participants in this court are working to regain custody of their children lost because of substance abuse.

Rebecca Foley, coordinator of the drug court, is there along with Tom Miller, an attorney for the participants. There are also representatives from the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office and the Department of Corrections’ probation and parole department, as well as a guardian ad litem representing the interests of the children.

During the first half of the four-hour court session, the group discusses each participant’s progress toward sobriety, including their latest drug tests and attendance at counseling sessions.

Miller explains the differing roles. Recovery support coordinators are there to help clients, “trying to look for the positive in a sometimes very negative situation.” A case manager’s job is “holding their feet to the fire.”

Foley says for most participants, the program lasts 12 to 18 months, but some spend up to three years in the court so long as they continue to make progress.

Support, tough love in drug court

After two hours, Triggiano herds the women and men of varying ages, ethnicities and economic situations into the courtroom. Observers are allowed into the courtroom only after agreeing to keep confidential the identities of the participants, who are required to be honest about often uncomfortable aspects of their lives.

The session begins with a new participant sitting in a chair in front of Triggiano. The judge says, “We want to help you along, support you and get your children back into your care.” Triggiano tells her she will have a team around to help.

The judge instructs the woman to return to court every Friday, cooperate with random urine tests and attend an alcoholism support group twice a week. The woman agrees.

The next participant is praised for attending group therapy sessions but chided for missing some individual sessions. She has been clean for five months, prompting a round of applause from the courtroom. Each participant sitting before Triggiano has one or more people standing behind or to the side for support.

Another woman wants to move up a level in the program with fewer responsibilities and more freedom. She is frustrated that she has not been able to reunite with her son.

“A lot of you, your children or child has been removed,” Triggiano tells the group. “You want to go 100 miles per hour. What we try to do here is slow you down to take care of yourselves. If you don’t do that … none of that is going to happen.”

Robyn Ellis, to the right of Judge Mary Triggiano, center, is seen on the day of her graduation from Milwaukee County’s Family Drug Treatment Court in 2014. Completing the program allowed Ellis to regain custody of her daughter, Gaeliona, then 5. Also celebrating were, from left, Megan Koch, Ellis’ sister Joslyn Zinkowski, and her grandmother Marion Schroetter, far right.

Another woman is visibly angry. She limps to the chair, frowning. She says her social worker is not around. “Ain’t nobody helping me out. My daughter’s in a foster home and she wants to kill herself,” the woman says forcefully to Triggiano. “I feel like I’m telling my life story and nothing’s happened.

“Everyone’s moving up levels,” she continues. “It feels like I’m not going anywhere.”

It is a tone of voice that might spell trouble for a defendant standing before a judge. Triggiano appears unfazed.

Waiting until the woman is done talking, the judge reveals that she has been holding an application for her to move up in the program. She congratulates the participant for “holding us accountable,” adding, “You’re speaking your truth.”

Later on, a male participant tells Triggiano of his relapse. She responds: “What’s the routine? Get back on track. Process it, and move on.”

The session ends with a graduation: a woman who was facing years in prison is instead fully reunited with her daughter. The program has helped her get clean and become trained as a welder. In her graduation speech, there are hints that the woman’s childhood was far from ideal. She says she has forgiven her mother, who is sitting close by. She says she has overcome guilt and shame.

Her advice to the other participants: Stick with it.

No more ‘business as usual’

Courtesy of Robyn Ellis

Robyn Ellis, 26, is a 2014 graduate of the Family Drug Treatment Court overseen by Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Mary Triggiano. Ellis says the supportive atmosphere in the program helped her kick her drug and alcohol addictions and regain custody of her daughter, Gaeliona.

Speaking to hundreds of child welfare and court officials gathered in September in the Wisconsin Dells, Triggiano told them they should consider trauma in everything they do.

“We as practitioners need to understand how childhood experiences, including neglect and traumatic stress, change the biology of the brain and thereby the health of the child and the adults they become,” she said. “Armed with this knowledge, we cannot continue doing business as usual because business as usual is simply not working in our system.”

Robyn Ellis agrees. Ellis, who endured an abusive and neglectful childhood and domestic abuse as an adult, turned to drugs and alcohol to escape her trauma. In 2013, she lost custody of her daughter, Gaeliona. The love and support she found in Triggiano’s courtroom, Ellis said, helped her kick her addictions and regain custody of her 5-year-old in 2014.

During her 18 months in the program, Ellis came to view the officials as role models and supporters. That made her more receptive to their suggestions for change, she said.

“Going into that situation, I thought automatically I was going to be judged,” Ellis said. “(But) everyone wanted the best for me.”

In an interview, Triggiano is asked how she knows trauma-informed care works.

“Are we specifically measuring it? No. Do I believe it has added value and helped us come to positive outcomes? Yes.”

In the mid-1980s, San Diego physician Dr. Vincent Feletti of Kaiser Permanente made a surprising discovery: Many obese people also had a history of trauma. Overeating, Feletti found, was for some a reaction to traumatizing events from childhood, such as sexual abuse.

Feletti, along with Centers for Disease Control epidemiologist Dr. Robert Anda, developed the “adverse childhood experience” scale that is the basis for the current trauma-informed care movement.

Generally, the higher the ACE score, the more at risk you are for poor mental and physical health, unemployment and other negative outcomes in adulthood. However, the score does not measure positive factors that create resiliency such as the presence of a supportive adult. And it does not measure the severity or repetitiveness of these traumas — each type of ACE counts for just 1 point — nor does it cover all traumas, such as racism or street violence.

To learn your ACE score, take the quiz:

While you were growing up, during your first 18 years of life:

1. Did a parent or other adult in the household often or very often…

Swear at you, insult you, put you down or humiliate you?or
Act in a way that made you afraid that you might be physically hurt?

If yes, enter 1 ________

2. Did a parent or other adult in the household often or very often…

Push, grab, slap or throw something at you?or
Ever hit you so hard that you had marks or were injured?

If yes, enter 1 ________

3. Did an adult or person at least 5 years older than you ever…

Touch or fondle you or have you touch their body in a sexual way?or
Attempt or actually have oral, anal or vaginal intercourse with you?

If yes, enter 1 ________

4. Did you often or very often feel that…

No one in your family loved you or thought you were important or special?or
Your family didn’t look out for each other, feel close to each other or support each other?

If yes, enter 1 ________

5. Did you often or very often feel that…

You didn’t have enough to eat, had to wear dirty clothes and had no one to protect you?or
Your parents were too drunk or high to take care of you or take you to the doctor if you needed it?

If yes, enter 1 ________

6. Were your parents ever separated or divorced?

If yes, enter 1 ________

7. Was your mother or stepmother:

Often or very often pushed, grabbed, slapped or had something thrown at her?or
Sometimes, often or very often kicked, bitten, hit with a fist or hit with something hard?or
Ever repeatedly hit over at least a few minutes or threatened with a gun or knife?

If yes, enter 1 ________

8. Did you live with anyone who was a problem drinker or alcoholic or who used street drugs?

If yes, enter 1 ________

9. Was a household member depressed or mentally ill, or did a household member attempt suicide?

A new approach being championed by the state of Wisconsin is being blamed by a union official for breakdowns in security at Wisconsin’s two juvenile prisons that are now the targets of criminal and civil rights investigations.

Department of Corrections spokesman Tristan Cook said trauma-informed care now is the “standard approach” to juvenile corrections in several states, including Wisconsin.

Troy Bauch, a union official who represents workers at the two facilities, emphasized he is not opposed to trauma-informed care, just the way it has been implemented at Lincoln Hills.

He said the new approach led to the alleged abuse now under investigation. And, Bauch said, it has led to offender-on-staff attacks.

The allegations under investigation — that offenders have been attacked and sexually abused by staff and other offenders — prompted the resignation of DOC Secretary Ed Wall and the departure of staff and top management at the two prisons. The facilities also have been plagued by suicide attempts in recent months.

Courtesy of AFSCME Council 32

Union representative Troy Bauch says officials at Lincoln Hills School for Boys ‘gave the keys away to the kids’ when they implemented trauma-informed care at the northern Wisconsin juvenile prison.

“The facility gave the keys away to the kids,” said Bauch of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees Council 32. “There came a time where they (DOC) stopped holding youth accountable for their behavior. That led to assaults on staff and other youth.”

“I think it’s not fair to blame the trauma-informed care approach,” responded Joanne Juhnke, policy director at Wisconsin Family Ties, a Madison-based mental health advocacy group that helped train staff at the two facilities in Irma. “The trauma-informed care approach … is the opposite of the allegations of abuse. Trauma-informed care is all about safety.”

Cook agreed, saying the department has no plans to abandon trauma-informed care.

“It would be inaccurate to suggest that trauma-informed care was responsible for a breakdown in security and order, as trauma-informed care is a philosophical approach that takes into account prior trauma or abuse and teaches youth to avoid harmful or destructive behavior,” Cook said.

Fewer restraints used

The 2014 report recounted several security and other changes made to avoid traumatizing or retraumatizing the young people held there. The majority of the offenders had experienced at least three “adverse childhood experiences,” including physical or sexual abuse or severe and persistent neglect, the report said.

Dan Young / USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

A security fence surrounds the entrance to the Lincoln Hills School for Boys and Copper Lake School for girls complex in rural Irma, seen in this file photo. The two schools are under federal investigation for alleged abuse and violations of the civil rights of juvenile inmates housed there.

The changes included eliminating the use of leg shackles, with limited exceptions related to “aggression containment.” The facilities also stopped placing restraints on young offenders for out-of-building appointments such as doctor or dentist visits if they were not in “restraint status” while in the institutions because of escape risk. According to Bauch, workers also were told they could not summon security personnel to classrooms except for assaults or other serious incidents.

The report compared two living units at Lincoln Hills — one that incorporated trauma-informed care in juvenile offenders’ daily lives and another that did not.

Dan Young / USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Razor wire tops one of the fences at the Lincoln Hills School for Boys and Copper Lake School for girls complex in rural Irma, Wis. Federal criminal and civil rights investigations probing allegations of abuse of juvenile offenders are underway at the facilities.

Among the strategies used in the trauma-informed unit was creation of a “calm room” that was used an average of 266 times per month, and policies that led to fewer room confinements and other disciplinary actions. Walls were repainted with more relaxing colors and window screens that had created a “cage-like atmosphere” were removed. The number of major disciplinary infractions in the trauma-informed unit was cut in half, the report found.

But the report said some employees doubted the approach and had trouble using trauma-informed care in their interactions with the offenders.

Bauch countered that he believes the more relaxed atmosphere led to offender-on-offender assaults and attacks on staff, including one employee whom he said suffered a traumatic brain injury.

“The reason kids are at Lincoln Hills is they’ve been through everything else the state of Wisconsin has to offer, and they’ve failed … in less-restrictive environments,” Bauch said.

“Trauma-informed care — when they brought that in, they saw the beginning of the end of a safe facility.”

Coburn Dukehart / Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

Scott Webb is the trauma-informed care coordinator for the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. Webb says he does not know what role trauma-informed care played in the allegations of abuse under investigation at Lincoln Hills School for Boys.

Supporters tout approach

Scott Webb, coordinator of trauma-informed care for the state Department of Health Services, said he does not know what happened at Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake. He said trauma-informed care, when used correctly, should reduce — not exacerbate — violence.

“These young people, most likely, come from very traumatic backgrounds, and perhaps it’s never really been identified, it’s never really been talked about,” Webb said. “These young people may not have ever made the connection between their behavior and where maybe they have come from. And trauma-informed care doesn’t excuse behavior, but it may explain a lot of it.”

Tamra Oman, an advocate who helped train the Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake staff, said trauma-informed care only works when everyone, both staff and offenders, feels safe.

“That literally is the number one thing with trauma-informed care: Safety, transparency and honesty,” said Oman, who was physically and sexually abused as a child. “We have to get it stable and safe, whatever that looks like, wherever you are.

“If we continue to retrigger and hurt people,” Oman added, “no one is going to win.”

Coburn Dukehart / Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

Tamra Oman advocates the use of trauma-informed care. Oman helped train staff in the approach at Lincoln Hills School for Boys and Copper Lake School for girls. She says trauma-informed care works only when everyone feels safe — staff and offenders alike.

]]>https://www.wisconsinwatch.org/2016/05/what-role-did-trauma-informed-care-play-in-alleged-juvenile-prison-abuse/feed/2164894After guns wound and kill, bills pile up for victims and societyhttps://www.wisconsinwatch.org/2015/12/after-guns-wound-and-kill-bills-pile-up-for-victims-and-society/
https://www.wisconsinwatch.org/2015/12/after-guns-wound-and-kill-bills-pile-up-for-victims-and-society/#respondSun, 06 Dec 2015 05:01:45 +0000http://www.wisconsinwatch.org/?p=127603Precious Lives is a two-year project investigating the problem of gun violence among young people, its causes and potential solutions in the Milwaukee area and statewide. Read the Center’s stories in the series here.

In the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

On the Radio

Listen to the Precious Lives radio report, “The Cost of a Single Bullet,” featuring the shooting that left Claudiare Motley badly injured and deeply in debt.

Reporter Sean Kirkby spoke with Wisconsin Public Radio’s Central Time about his report. Dec. 8, 2015.

On TV

Kirkby discussed the story on Wisconsin Public Television’s Here and Now. Dec. 4, 2015.

It was 1:30 a.m. on the first day of summer in 2014, and Claudiare Motley had just dropped off a friend after coming into town for his Milwaukee Tech High School 25-year class reunion. He was parked around North 63rd Street and West Capitol Drive, writing an email on his phone, as two cars pulled up.

Motley, then 43, knew “something was going on” as one of the vehicles turned in front of him and stopped. He put his phone into his pocket, shifted his car into gear. A teenager jumped from the car and tapped Motley’s window with a gun.

He accelerated as 15-year-old Nathan King fired, shattering glass. Motley rammed the car in front of him out of the way. He sped off and looked in the rearview mirror to see if they were chasing him.

“I just saw blood gushing out of my jaw,” Motley said.

After more than a year and six surgeries to repair his injuries, Motley estimates his out-of-pocket costs to be at least $80,000, and he expects more medical expenses as he continues to recover.

His efforts to get state victim’s compensation for his medical bills not covered by insurance have been unsuccessful so far. Motley’s credit has taken a hit, and he estimates lost earnings because of time he could not work in his family’s international law firm to be between $40,000 and $60,000.

Wisconsin taxpayers and health care providers also pay a high price for gun violence. In April, Mother Jones magazine pegged the cost of gun violence to Wisconsinites in 2012 at $2.9 billion in direct and indirect costs, or $508 for every person in the state.

Those figures include the financial and psychological tolls taken when a bullet forever alters the lives of victims and shooters alike. There are lost wages, stunted futures, shattered plans, life-changing trauma.

Haley Henschel / Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

The credit of shooting victim Claudiare Motley has taken a hit after a 2014 shooting left him paying tens of thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket medical and other expenses.

Firearms are a big factor in crime statewide. In 2014, guns were involved in 75 percent of murders, 56 percent of armed robberies, 27 percent of aggravated assaults and 3 percent of forcible rapes, according to the state Department of Justice.

Taxpayers pay all of the costs for police, prosecutors and incarceration — and sometimes to defend the accused — in gun crimes. And 79 percent of health care costs in Wisconsin associated with firearm-related injuries are paid by the public, according to a 2014 report using 2010 data by the Urban Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.

When he is released from prison, King — who is now paralyzed from the waist down because of a separate shooting days after he shot Motley — will probably face limited employment opportunities. Motley said he does not expect to see much of the $29,339 in court-ordered restitution.

John Klein / For the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Nathan King is wheeled out of court after being sentenced in July. King, who shot Claudiare Motley on June 21, 2014, was paralyzed from the waist down after being shot during another attempted robbery a few days later.

State taxpayers paid about $1,500 for the 50 hours spent by Milwaukee County Assistant District Attorney Joy Hammond to prosecute King during the case that ended in September. They paid $1,537 for King’s attorney, Ann T. Bowe.

Residents of Wisconsin will spend about $405,000 to keep King in prison during his 12-and-a-half-year sentence for the Motley shooting and a later armed robbery in which King himself was shot. After he is released, King will be on extended supervision for seven and a half years at a cost to taxpayers of at least $21,000 in today’s dollars.

The tally for the Motley shooting — at least half a million dollars — is the cost of just one shooting in a city that this year has seen 691 people shot, including 131 killed, by firearms as of Nov. 15. That was a 77 percent increase in gun homicides from November 2014 and an 11 percent increase in nonfatal shootings.

Entire communities pay price

In addition to victims, entire communities face costs, including reduced property values in high-crime areas and increased costs to keep the public safe.

“It’s not just a problem for the individuals who are unlucky enough to get shot,” said Philip Cook, professor of public policy, economics and sociology at Duke University. “It’s a problem for whole communities. It’s a drag on economic development, it’s a drag on quality of life in a variety of ways.”

Violence was one of the things that prompted Motley to move out of his hometown of Milwaukee about eight years ago. He and his wife, Kimberley, and three children moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, in part to escape what he calls a “cultural acceptance of violence” and a “proliferation of guns and illegal drugs.”

“You always hear the bad things that could happen, but you never really think … that you actually encounter something like that,” he said.

A report from the Center for American Progress, a progressive public policy organization, suggests that a reduction in violent crime — including homicides, rapes and assaults — could have large impacts on urban areas. The report, which analyzed 2010 crime levels in Milwaukee and seven other cities, suggested a 10 percent reduction in homicides could boost residential real estate by $800 million in Milwaukee.

The report noted such a reduction could generate “large revenue gains” from property taxes, but it did not provide an estimate. Cutting homicides by 25 percent, it projected, could add $2 billion in increased housing values.

Mark Hoffman / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Police tape marks the scene where 13-year-old Giovonnie G. Cameron was shot and killed near Lincoln Park in Milwaukee on July 8. As of Nov. 15, fatal shootings in Milwaukee are up 77 percent compared to the same period in 2014.

Experts say because the cost for each shooting is so high — often in the tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars — anything that could reduce gun violence would likely be worth the investment.

“Almost any reasonable policy that reduces crime will pay for itself,” said David Weimer, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of political economy and expert in cost-benefit analysis.

But not everyone agrees on the best way to curb gun violence. Some have called for expanding background checks and for banning certain types of assault weapons.

Nass, whose organization is affiliated with the National Rifle Association, argued that violence and gun issues are separate. He called for more prosecution of illegal gun possession and gun crimes.

“Bad violence is bad violence. Whether it’s done with a knife, a gun, whatever, it’s the person,” Nass said. “The people that we know are violent — that we know are in the criminal element — need to be held accountable.”

Gun violence drives up medical costs

The medical costs of shootings are often borne by taxpayers. Those costs usually begin with a trip to the hospital from the scene of the shooting.

Last year, paramedics from the Milwaukee Fire Department provided services to 297 shooting victims. The average cost was $1,300 per patient, or roughly $386,100.

About half of emergency visits and 60 percent of hospitalizations are covered by Medicaid or Medicare, which are public insurance programs. The total amount public insurance programs paid for gun-related injuries in 2014 was about $6 million after negotiations between health care providers and the state and physician fees are factored in.

The Wisconsin Hospital Association, which provided information to the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism used to reach this estimate, cautioned that it is “very rough.”

Dr. Stephen Hargarten, chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin, said firearm injuries are “very, very expensive” to the public. Unlike knives and other methods of assault, firearms are more deadly and can leave significant long-term disabilities, he said.

Mike De Sisti / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Stephen Hargarten, director of the Injury Research Center at the Medical College of Wisconsinin Milwaukee, said firearm injuries are “very, very expensive” to the public.

“It’s costly to all of us because a significant portion of the people who are injured with bullets are those who are on Medicaid, Medicare or self pay,” said Hargarten, director of the college’s Injury Research Center.

Ted Miller, senior research scientist at the nonprofit Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, said there may be additional costs for mental health care for those impacted by violence. Miller is is an expert in the costs of gun violence and other injuries at the institute, which uses research to recommend ways to improve public safety and health. For every type of homicide, he said, somewhere between 1.5 and 2.4 family members and loved ones of the victims seek mental health care.

Often, those costs, which vary from person to person, also are covered through public insurance programs, said Dr. Marlene Melzer-Lange, a professor of pediatrics at the Medical College of Wisconsin and program director of Project Ujima at the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. Project Ujima provides mental health services to both adults and child victims of violent crime.

A small percentage of shootings leave victims paralyzed or gravely injured. That can lead to being placed on the state’s long-term care programs, which cost taxpayers roughly $3,100 a month for nursing home care or $530 a month for in-home care.

Legal, law enforcement costs high

Another cost is police response. That can vary significantly, from sending two officers to a report of shots fired to shutting down several blocks as officers canvass an area looking for evidence in a homicide. The time it takes to conduct an investigation depends on the cooperation of victims and witnesses and other factors.

“It’s different for every shooting,” said Milwaukee Police Department Sgt. Tim Gauerke. “Every one of them is based on the circumstances on hand.”

In 2014, the department dispatched units to 6,622 reported calls of shots fired — an average of 18 calls a day. Those calls may have overlapped with the 3,632 incidents of gunshots detected by the department’s ShotSpotter detection system, which allows police to pinpoint locations where a firearm has been discharged in an area of 11 square miles in the city.

That system expanded last year with a one-time funding of $350,000 split by the state and Milwaukee, and now costs the city more than $320,000 a year.

Wisconsin’s largest city has the most homicides and nonfatal shootings in the state. According to the Milwaukee Homicide Review Commission, there were 75 firearm homicides and 583 nonfatal shooting victims in the city in 2014. The Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office prosecuted more than 1,100 cases involving a firearm last year.

To support efforts this year, the state, the city of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County formed the Milwaukee Gun Violence Reduction Initiative. The Legislature’s budget-writing committee unanimously backed $366,800 for the state to hire two assistant attorneys general to work as special prosecutors for gun cases in Milwaukee. Democratic and Republican lawmakers called the program a “Band-Aid” solution.

Katie Klann / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

(From left) Arifah Akbar, Nazir Akbar and Katraile Scott stand together during a vigil for Tariq Akbar, on July 7. Tariq was shot to death July 3 in Milwaukee after watching a fireworks display with his friends. This year, Milwaukee has seen a sharp increase in shootings, which can cost taxpayers and victims tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars each in medical bills, incarceration costs and other expenses.

On the other side of firearm-related cases, the State Public Defender’s Office provides legal representation to defendants who cannot afford an attorney.

Since 2012, the office has appointed private attorneys to represent defendants in 832 armed robbery cases, paying each an average of $1,415. (Armed robbery can include any type of weapon, including a gun.) That amounts to $1.2 million and does not include the cost of paying public defender staff who represented other armed robbery suspects.

After they are convicted, inmates cost Wisconsin taxpayers an average of $32,800 a year. The average cost to supervise an offender after release is about $2,800 annually.

Police caught King, the teenager who shot Motley, shortly after the June 21, 2014, after he committed another crime. In that incident, King attempted to steal a woman’s car. She pulled out a gun and shot him, leaving King paralyzed from the waist down.

Motley fought to ensure King was tried as an adult because he felt a sentence in the juvenile system would have been too light.

John Klein / For the Milwaukee Journal Sentintel

Claudiare Motley is surrounded by his sisters after the sentencing of Nathan King in July. Motley, who was shot in Milwaukee last year, has undergone multiple surgeries and faced tens of thousands of dollars in bills and lost wages. Motley was one of 583 victims of nonfatal shootings in Milwaukee in 2014.

“I just felt that was not enough to teach a lesson to a person who was really violent,” he said.

Gun violence costs wide-ranging

It is not just victims and perpetrators who pay a high price. There are other costs — some of them hard to quantify.

“We don’t know some of the other less easily defined costs of the fact that people in rural areas won’t come to Milwaukee because they’re scared,” said Hargarten of the Medical College of Wisconsin. “There’s an impact on tourism. There’s an impact maybe on businesses trying to locate somewhere else because the perception is that Milwaukee is not very safe.”

Miller said another understudied cost is the impact of adverse childhood experiences — serious traumas, such as witnessing or being a victim of gun violence. Studies show those experiences can harm brain development and may increase future health problems, including heart disease, depression and drug abuse.

“I think a lot of us for a long time have said violence is a public health problem, and a lot of people didn’t really believe it,” said Melzer-Lange of Project Ujima. “Your health either as a witness or as a direct victim is going to be affected downstream.”

Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin

Dr. Marlene Melzer-Lange, a professor of pediatrics at the Medical College of Wisconsin and program director of Project Ujima at the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, said children who witness violence are more likely to suffer future health problems.

Schools also pay for gun violence. According to a 2013 article in the trade magazine Campus Safety, 88 percent of school districts nationwide made or planned to make security enhancements after the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting in 2012.

There is also the “value of a statistical life.” Economists calculate that number by summing up what people are willing to pay for a small reduction in the probability of death. For example, if each person living in a community of 100,000 would pay $100 to reduce the number of deaths by one each year, the value of life would be $10 million.

The U.S. Department of Transportation puts the value at $9.4 million. This value is used nationwide by the department to analyze whether the cost of a certain potentially life-saving regulation or transportation improvement is worthwhile.

Miller puts the statistical value for one person injured by gun violence at $6.2 million. He said that “accounts for the pain, suffering and the lost quality of life for victims and their families.”

Victims can get some of their costs covered. Wisconsin’s Crime Victim Compensation Program caps the amount victims and their families can receive at $40,000 and only for out-of-pocket expenses. Qualifying families can also receive up to $1,000 to clean up a crime scene and $2,000 for a funeral. In all, $4.1 million was awarded in 2013-14 for 2,498 claims. The average claim paid was $3,205.

What can be done to curb violence?

Reducing gun violence requires a multi-faceted approach, experts say, with policy initiatives at the federal, state and local levels.

“If we can make those cities safer for gun violence, then they can develop and become places that thrive economically where businesses are investing in them, where employment becomes generally available,” said Cook of Duke.

Wisconsin lawmakers have offered some solutions. Gov. Scott Walker recently signed into law a bill that establishes mandatory minimum sentences for felons who commit certain violent crimes while illegally possessing a firearm.

Duke University

Phil Cook, a professor of public policy, economics and sociology at Duke University, said gun violence is costly to the entire community. “It’s a drag on economic development, it’s a drag on quality of life in a variety of ways,” he said.

State Democrats want to expand background checks for firearm purchases and ban semiautomatic weapons. A bill with bipartisan support would prevent those who commit multiple or violent misdemeanors from purchasing a firearm for 10 years, but those bills have not moved far in the Legislature.

During a Nov. 4 discussion before voting to pay for additional prosecutors for Milwaukee gun crimes, Democrats called for more action.

“Until we get to the bottom of addressing trauma and giving people hope by giving people opportunity through jobs, nothing’s going to change,” said Sen. Lena Taylor, D-Milwaukee.

State Republican lawmakers during the committee discussion saw different answers to the gun violence problem.

State Rep. Dale Kooyenga, R-Brookfield, said the problem needs to be addressed on multiple fronts. The state already has “a lot of gun laws,” and he said some of the issues may not be solvable through public policy.

“What Milwaukee needs and what kids need in Milwaukee is not more district attorneys,” Kooyenga said. “We need more fathers, and the other part of it is we need more schools.”

Sen. Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, called for more police officers and getting “habitual criminals” off the streets.

Motley agreed in part. He said repeat offenders, such as the 17-year-old who gave King the gun used to shoot him are part of “an epidemic that’s going on in the system.” Motley wants to find a way to prevent shootings and get guns off the streets, a focus that helps relieve some of the anger he feels at what happened to him.

“I’m not going to lay down. That’s not who I am,” Motley said. “And I’m just going to keep fighting.”

]]>https://www.wisconsinwatch.org/2015/12/after-guns-wound-and-kill-bills-pile-up-for-victims-and-society/feed/0127603Hundreds hurt, killed when Wisconsin teens get gunshttps://www.wisconsinwatch.org/2015/08/hundreds-hurt-killed-when-wisconsin-teens-get-guns-2/
https://www.wisconsinwatch.org/2015/08/hundreds-hurt-killed-when-wisconsin-teens-get-guns-2/#commentsSun, 30 Aug 2015 05:01:27 +0000http://www.wisconsinwatch.org/?p=102754
Precious Lives is a two-year project investigating the problem of gun violence among young people, its causes, and potential solutions in the Milwaukee area and statewide. Learn more about the project.

SIDEBARS

PREVIOUS COVERAGE

Outside of the Boys and Girls Club of Dane County in Fitchburg, children swing on a playground. Inside the club’s Allied Drive neighborhood location, teenagers dribble basketballs. In the doorway are metal detectors, keeping weapons out of the building. But the danger of firearms still permeates the community.

When asked what exposure they had to guns, a group of children talked about their friend, former Boys and Girls Club member Eric Gutierrez, an 11-year-old accidentally shot to death in Walworth County on July 9, 2014, a few months after his family moved there from Madison.

“His friends were playing with it,” Keara Jones, 11, recalled during an April interview. “I guess they pulled the trigger and then they shot him. And they left him there.”

Police discovered that Eric and a 14-year-old friend were playing with a handgun in the woods behind the friend’s home in Sharon, a village of 1,600, when Gutierrez was shot in the head. He died the next day.

The gun came from the friend’s father, who kept about 20 firearms in the home. According to police, all of the weapons were accessible, including some stored in an unlocked safe in the teenager’s bedroom. The father was sentenced to a year of probation and has agreed to pay $5,000 in restitution to Eric’s family. The teenager got a year of supervision.

Kate Golden / Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

A teen passes through the metal detector at the Dane County Boys and Girls Club in Fitchburg. Some young people at the club in the Allied Drive neighborhood have had experiences with guns.

It is illegal for anyone younger than 18 in Wisconsin to possess a firearm except for target practice, training or hunting, and then in most cases only under adult supervision. Nevertheless, hundreds or perhaps thousands of teenagers each year illegally carry firearms — for protection or to hurt themselves or others.

Guns and teens can be a lethal mix. Immaturity and impulsiveness, combined with weapons that can kill with the squeeze of a trigger, have caused death and devastating injuries to Wisconsin children and adults. For example, more than 250 children were suspects in nonfatal shootings in Milwaukee alone during the past decade.

Public health and gun experts say teens get their hands on guns from people they know, often friends or family — not primarily by stealing or buying them illegally. They say more needs to be done to keep firearms out of the hands of minors.

In Milwaukee, about 6 percent of public high school students surveyed in 2013 said they had carried a gun in the previous month, with roughly a third of those saying they had carried on four or more days. The survey did not specify where students carried the guns.

That would mean of the approximately 21,000 high-school students enrolled in fall 2012, roughly 1,300 were armed during the previous 30 days. The rate is similar to those in other large cities including Chicago, Houston and Seattle, Milwaukee Public Schools spokesman Tony Tagliavia said.

Kate Golden / Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

Children play behind the Dane County Boys and Girls Club in Fitchburg. Some young people at the club in the Allied Drive neighborhood have had experiences with guns.

As of Aug. 24, 41 children under the age of 17 had been wounded and seven killed by gunfire in Milwaukee this year, according to the city’s police department. That includes a 14-year-old boy shot to death during Fourth of July weekend, a few days before a 13-year-old was charged in the shooting death of another boy his same age.

On July 19, a 17-year-old Milwaukee girl was shot to death while standing on her front porch; the shooting was the city’s 86th homicide of the year, tying the total for all of 2014.

Children also were suspects in hundreds of homicides and nonfatal shootings in Milwaukee over the previous decade.

Between 2005 and 2014, 109 children in Milwaukee were suspected of homicide, many involving guns. Minors accounted for roughly 10 percent of all shooting suspects in 2014, according to the Milwaukee Homicide Review Commission.

Statewide problem

Statewide, 109 children ages 17 and under were killed by firearms between 2003 and 2012. An additional 15 young people died of accidental shootings in the same decade, according to the Department of Health Services’ injury mortality database.

A 2013 survey of public high school students on risky behaviors found that 14 percent reported carrying a weapon, such as a club, knife or firearm in the previous 30 days.

Examples of young people within the past two years using guns to harm others can be found around Wisconsin:

In early June, an 11-year-old boy was shot in the face when he and his 15-year-old cousin were playing with a .22-caliber rifle in Reid, a town of 1,200 in Marathon County, after a day of target shooting with an adult.

A 17-year-old from Fitchburg is suspected of a July 15 shooting at a Fleet Farm parking lot in Beaver Dam, 40 miles northeast of Madison. The teen, who was suspected of shoplifting ammunition, allegedly wounded a store manager who was trying to detain him.

In February, Dean Sutcliffe, 17, allegedly killed his ex-girlfriend’s sister and her mother’s boyfriend. Sutcliffe lived in Mazomanie, a village of about 1,700 roughly 25 miles west of Madison. He used his father’s revolver, which he had obtained after finding a key to the gun’s safe.

Amber Arnold / Wisconsin State Journal

Dean Sutcliffe, 17, of Mazomanie, right, who was charged with the shooting deaths of Ariyl Brady, 16, and Chris Schwichtenberg, 39, is led into his initial appearance at the Dane County Public Safety Building in Madison on Feb. 12.

Ashlee Martinson, 17, allegedly killed her stepfather with a rifle and her mother with a knife in March. They lived in Piehl, a town with fewer than 100 residents, located about 20 miles east of Rhinelander.

In September, a 17-year-old was charged in Superior with felony murder after he shot and killed a man in a robbery. He pleaded guilty in early June to the crime.

Last summer in Racine, a 15-year-old reportedly shot and killed a 19-year-old, who was also armed, later bragging about the murder in a rap video.

In late December, a 14-year-old was shot and sent to the hospital after he and others were playing with a .22 caliber revolver in Madison. Police said Elliot Johnson, 18, accidentally shot his cousin in the chest. Johnson was sentenced to four years of probation Aug. 21 after pleading guilty to charges including first-degree reckless injury.

Many children also have used guns to harm themselves.

Between 2003 and 2012, the most recent years with available data, 108 Wisconsinites ages 17 and younger died from self-inflicted gunshot wounds. Shooting was the second most common means of committing suicide among young people in Wisconsin.

Among them was a 15-year-old high school student who fatally shot himself in 2010 at Marinette High School after holding his teacher and classmates hostage.

Stephen Hargarten, director of the Injury Research Center at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, said restricting access to guns for young people would be an important step in curbing youth gun violence.

Hargarten acknowledges there is a lot of political disagreement over gun control but said, “This is, I think, an area of common ground. Nobody wants unauthorized access of these products to youth.”

Background checks for all gun purchases would cut access to firearms by young people, he and other experts say.

Democratic lawmakers have proposed requiring that all gun purchases, except to family members, occur through federally licensed firearms dealers who are required to conduct background checks. Currently, unlicensed dealers can sell online, in private transactions or at gun shows without background checks. Gun advocates say such regulation burdens law-abiding citizens who have a constitutional right to own weapons.

A similar effort in the past legislative session died. Despite a March 2013 Marquette Law School poll that found 81 percent of Wisconsinites said they support such a policy, top GOP lawmakers who control the Legislature remain opposed.

In June, Republican Gov. Scott Walker signed into a law a bill repealing the state’s 48-hour waiting period to purchase a handgun. Bill author Rep. Romaine Quinn, R-Rice Lake, called the waiting period “an unnecessary burden.”

Professor Daniel Webster, director of the Center for Gun Policy and Research at Johns Hopkins University, proposes an additional safeguard: having police issue a permit to buy any handgun.

Enactment of such a law led to a 40 percent drop in gun homicides in Connecticut, according to a study published in June authored by Webster. But such laws are strongly opposed by gun-rights groups, and there are no current proposals to require permits before Wisconsin’s Legislature.

“The whole problem with the permission thing is that the law-abiding citizen has to get permission to exercise their rights,” said Nass, whose group is the state’s National Rifle Association-chartered organization. “We should put this onus onto the people who lost their rights (such as felons), not the people who have them.”

Broader efforts needed

But changing laws and policies must be coupled with educating young people “to see firearms as a bad way to resolve conflict,” said John Rakowski, program coordinator for the medical college’s Violence Prevention Initiative, which ended this summer. He called for a focused community-wide effort to “engage people in conversation about the lethal nature of firearms and find a way to deter them from wanting to pick them up.”

Rakowski also backs stiffer penalties for those caught carrying firearms illegally. A bipartisan bill imposing mandatory minimum sentences on violent felons possessing a weapon and using a firearm in a crime is making its way through the Legislature.

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Stephen Teret, a Johns Hopkins University professor of health policy, said technology such as so-called smart guns could help cut teen violence by ensuring that only legal owners of weapons can fire them.

Locking up guns when not in use — which is not required in Wisconsin — would be another good way to keep them out of the hands of children, Hargarten and others say. Some also call for beefing up gun safety courses to include training on how to recognize and prevent suicide.

Technology also may be an answer, said Stephen Teret, a Johns Hopkins professor of health policy. Some guns have mechanisms making them usable only to their owners, which Teret called the “best bet” to reduce teenage suicides, violence and accidental shootings.

‘Guns don’t drop from the sky’

Webster, the gun-policy researcher from Johns Hopkins, has analyzed data from a federal nationwide survey of inmates younger than 20 years of age. He said 36 percent of the young offenders who used guns in crimes got them from friends and family.

An additional 47 percent of inmates said they had gotten their guns from “the street.” Webster said his research has shown that those young people often got guns from people who are not strangers.

Kate Golden / Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

Illa Daff, 20, left, and Terrell James, 16, right, discuss their experiences with guns in and around Madison. James once found a pistol on a street. Daff dove from gunfire as people celebrated New Year’s Eve.

“Guns don’t drop from the sky, they don’t sprout from the ground,” he said. “They come and they start in legal commerce.”

Rakowski, of the medical college, said researchers do not fully know where teens get guns.

“We are not really well-informed about where they’re getting access to guns or why they’re getting access,” he said. “Therefore it’s really hard to make effective strategies and solutions when we don’t really understand the problem.”

Guns common in suicide

According to a 2005 study by Hargarten, 323 people in Wisconsin younger than 25 between the year 2000 and 2002 used firearms to kill themselves. In cases where the young person used someone else’s firearm, about half of the time it came from a family member or guardian.

A Harvard study of four states, including Wisconsin, as well as two counties out of state found 82 percent of teens used a gun belonging to a family member to take their own lives.

Catherine Barber, a Harvard researcher and director of the Means Matters campaign, said one study found that among people who survived a suicide attempt, just under half said the thought of killing themselves came to them within 10 minutes of their attempt — making easy access to a firearm even more dangerous. Barber added that shooting is the most deadly type of suicide attempt.

“A lot of people’s suicidal intent peaks at a crisis and then ebbs,” Barber said. “When you’re in just a frenzy of despair over a relationship break up on Saturday, by Monday you might still be unhappy but not in the same fever pitch frenzy.”

Mark Hoffman / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Police tape marks the scene where 13-year old Giovonnie G. Cameron was shot and killed near Lincoln Park in Milwaukee on July 8.

Locking up firearms

Research shows that having a gun in the home is associated with an overall higher risk of suicide. Dr. David Grossman, a pediatrician and researcher at Group Health Cooperative in Washington, said storing a gun reduces the overall risk of teenage suicide and accidental gun injuries.

“Our study showed you can achieve rather substantial benefit from just locking the gun in a safe or lockbox without necessarily having to unload it,” said Grossman, an expert in gun storage techniques research.

According to the Harvard study, about two-thirds of the guns used by minors who took their own lives were stored unlocked. When a gun was locked away, the young person found the key, learned the combination or broke in, the study found.

Cable gun locks, which work by running a cable through the gun to prevent it from being fired, have been offered through Prevent Suicide Kenosha County, a partnership between the Medical College of Wisconsin, the county and others. The locks have been offered in 22 counties since 2006, said Debbie Rueber, chairwoman of the partnership.

Nass also has provided cable gun locks for some of the courses he teaches in gun safety. He said such mechanisms can reduce theft. He also credited the state’s concealed carry law, which requires gun safety classes, with helping improve safety around firearms.

Nass added that children, who are naturally curious, must be taught not to touch guns.

“The best safety of the firearm is the operator,” Nass said. “Education is the key, no question.”

Smart guns, safe guns

Johns Hopkins professor Teret said outreach on gun safety and storage techniques should be coupled with design changes in guns. Teret sees smart guns or childproof guns, which can only be operated by authorized users, as the future.

Armatix

The Armatix iP1 is a so-called smart or childproof gun. It is activated by a person wearing a wristwatch that emits a radio frequency. Currently, the Armatix is the only such gun available in the nation, says John Hopkins University professor Stephen Teret.

Currently, just one smart gun is on the market in the United States with others in development, Teret said. The Armatix iP1 operates with the use of a wristwatch that sends radio signals to the firearm.

Hargarten said such technology is initially relatively expensive, but would likely become cheaper in the future when market conditions change.

“This is a significant public health problem, and elements of attacking this are behavioral, regulatory and technological in nature,” Hargarten said. “And it’s important that people come together and talk about it in that way.”

MAIN STORY

Wisconsin gun laws prohibit children from possessing firearms, with few exceptions. And adults who leave firearms easily accessible to children could face jail time. Highlights include:

Allowing a child younger than 14 access to a firearm without permission of a parent or guardian is a misdemeanor if the child uses that gun to harm anyone or to show it off in a public place, unless that gun was safely stored.

Firearm retailers are required to provide each buyer with a written statement warning that if they leave a loaded firearm within reach of a child they could be fined or imprisoned.

Possession of a gun by anyone under 18 is a misdemeanor, unless that gun is being used for target practice, hunting or the child is a member of the armed forces.

Giving, loaning or selling a dangerous weapon to someone under 18 is a felony and carries a sentence of up to 3½ years in prison and a $10,000 fine unless the firearm is used for target practice or hunting. If that gun is used in a homicide or suicide, the person can be charged with a felony carrying up to six years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Anyone except a law enforcement officer who carries a firearm on school grounds is guilty of a felony, punishable by 3 ½ years in prison and a $10,000 fine. The Assembly and the Senate have approved a bill that would allow off-duty and former police officers to carry weapons on school grounds.

Firing a gun in a school zone can result in a felony, with a maximum $25,000 fine or 10 years in prison.

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https://www.wisconsinwatch.org/2015/08/child-gun-laws-in-wisconsin-2/feed/0102776LISTEN: What Young People Know About Gunshttps://www.wisconsinwatch.org/2015/08/precious-lives-what-young-people-know-about-guns/
Tue, 11 Aug 2015 18:47:24 +0000http://www.wisconsinwatch.org/?p=97348

Precious Lives is a two-year project investigating the problem of gun violence among young people, its causes, and potential solutions in the Milwaukee area and statewide. Learn more about the project.

In this week’s episode of Precious Lives, a two-year project examining gun violence among young people in the Milwaukee area and statewide, Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism reporters Kate Golden and Sean Kirkby visit the Madison area’s Allied Drive Boys and Girls Club to ask children what they know about guns. The reporters found that nearly all of the young people they talked to had some level of experience with guns.

Many of the young people interviewed, who spanned ages 11 to 20, talked about how easy it is for guns to reach children’s hands and how prevalent they were in their communities. In the episode, Taquirria Smith, 12, recalls a time when her older cousin was playing with a gun.

“There was no bullets in it but she shot out air,” Smith said. “I wanted to play too but she ain’t let me.”

Access to guns led to the death of Eric Gutierrez, 11, in July 2014 when he and a friend took a gun into the woods. As his friends were playing with it, one of them pulled the trigger. The shooter was 14, and when police went to his house, they found about 20 accessible guns, including some in an unlocked safe in the teen’s bedroom.